


"in other words"

by talkwordytome



Series: songbird [1]
Category: Ocean's 8 (2018), Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Falling In Love, Future Fic, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, Love Confessions, Post-Heist, Slow Burn, ocean's gay-t, this is so gay and so am i
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 20:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15445569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkwordytome/pseuds/talkwordytome
Summary: Fill my heart with song & let me sing forevermoreYou are all I long for, all I worship, & adoreIn other words: please be trueIn other words: I love you--Frank Sinatra, “Fly Me to the Moon”or, four times Debbie wasn't sure how to say "I love you" & the one time she finally figured it out





	"in other words"

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! So my girlfriend & I have decided to start a series of song lyric inspired _Ocean's 8_ ficlets because we're very gay and this movie is very gay and everyone needs a little gay in their life every now and again, amIright? Some of the fics we'll be writing together, some I'll be writing mostly by myself w/her beta-ing,  & some SHE'LL write mostly by herself w/ME beta-ing. 
> 
> This particular fic is largely my endeavor with beta-ing from my lovely girlfriend, & it's inspired by the song "Fly Me to the Moon" just because I have this feeling that Debbie would have a lot of problems verbally expressing any sort of emotion which, like, girl--same.
> 
> This particular fic is rated Teen for mostly language & a couple references to sex (though there's no actual sex). And yeah! Onward!

1\. 

Lou smells coffee and pancakes in the crisp October air. She smells warm skin, laundry detergent, the tang of arousal. She’s alert now, alone in the bed. 

Lou swings long legs over towards the floor, bare feet padding as she walks to the bathroom. She splashes cold water on her face and gazes at herself in the mirror. Yesterday she was 44, but this morning she’s 45. It feels impossibly older, somehow, this middle of the road number. She looks damn good for 45, she thinks, admiring her blonde bedhead and the faint laugh lines around her blue eyes. 

Debbie is making noise in the kitchen. She’d woken Lou when the sky was still a blurry violet-orange to have sweet, sleepy sex. Then, still smiling in the haze of sunrise and afterglow, she had whispered into Lou’s ear that she had better “turn over and go back to sleep like a proper 45-year-old.”

Birthdays are important to Debbie, as Lou knows. More specifically, _her_ birthday is important to Debbie. Lou doesn’t talk of her childhood often, but it suffices to say that her birthday wasn’t often honored with a party, was even forgotten on occasion. Debbie, who knows now that life is too short and looks for any excuse to celebrate, has spent their entire relationship making up for this.

Lou wanders into the kitchen, sniffing curiously. Debbie is drizzling maple syrup onto a tower of steaming pancakes. She’s wearing a plain grey long-sleeved shirt (Lou’s, or formerly Lou’s at any rate) and a pair of flannel pants. Her brown hair is loosely braided and hanging over her shoulder. She licks a dot of syrup off of the tip of her thumb.

“You look adorable,” Lou says, wrapping her arms around Debbie’s waist.  


Debbie turns around, brandishing her spatula. There’s a bit of batter smeared on her cheekbone. Lou is hopelessly and stupidly and irrevocably smitten. 

“You’re supposed to be in bed,” Debbie says, smacking Lou lightly with the spatula. “I was going to bring breakfast to you. Birthday-royal treatment for her highness.”

“But I missed you,” Lou purrs, blinking coquettishly at Debbie. “Are those funfetti?” She reaches for a pancake, but Debbie slaps her hand away.

“Go sit,” Debbie says, nodding towards the kitchen table. “That’s an order.”

“I’m not sure that’s any way to treat a lady,” Lou says mildly, “and on her birthday, no less.”

“Well sure,” Debbie says, rummaging in a drawer, “but I don’t see any ladies in here.”

“Har har.”

Lou kicks one of her feet up on the table and grins as Debbie brings over the pancakes. There is a lit candle in the center of the stack, green and glittery. The small warbling flame casts delicate shadows on Lou’s clavicles. “My, aren’t we fancy,” Lou says. “Did you find this online?”

“This is all me. You like it?” Debbie asks, settling next to Lou and tucking a foot underneath herself. “Go on, blow it out.”

“You didn’t sing,” Lou says incredulously. “I can’t blow them out unless you sing.”

“Any particular requests, or…?”

“Oh my God.”

Debbie rolls her eyes and huffs a sigh. “Happybirthdaytoyouhappybirthdaytoyouhappybirthdaydearlooooo-ooouhappybirthdaytoyou.” She takes a deep breath. “There. Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Lou grins, then shuts her eyes.

“What are you--” Debbie begins, but Lou interrupts her.

“Hush,” she says. “I’m making a wish.”  


She opens her eyes again and blows out the single candle. Debbie cuts off a small forkful of pancake, swabs it in some syrup, and offers it to Lou. Lou parts her wide lips ever so slightly. 

Debbie looks at Lou pensively as she chews. “What?” Lou asks self-consciously, mouth full. “Do I have syrup on my face or something?”

Debbie shakes her head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just--” she pauses, trails off, closes her mouth and opens it again. “Happy birthday,” she finishes, gazing softly at Lou.

Lou smiles, accepting this small gift, as if it were what Debbie meant to say all along.

2.

Debbie struggles to close the loft door against the fierce wind outside. It’s early December, barely past Thanksgiving, and uncharacteristically cold. Her cheeks are apple-red and stinging. Debbie doesn’t mind, though; she’s never been bothered by winter. It rejuvenates her, awakens some vital, bright part of her brain. 

Winter does not, however, sit well with Lou; a side effect of being an Aussie until nearly adulthood, Debbie supposes. She is reminded of this fact when she discovers Lou sleeping on their sofa under two blankets, bundled in a heavy sweater (that at one point belonged to Debbie) and a pair of thick wool socks. Lou’s brow is furrowed, as though even in sleep she is distressed by the draft seeping into the large, open loft.

Debbie approaches the lump of fleece covered Lou and runs a hand gently through her short blonde hair. Lou shifts, mumbles fretfully, but doesn’t wake. Debbie shakes her, a bit more vigorously this time. “Sleeping beauty,” she whispers into Lou’s ear, “time to come back to the land of the living.”

Lou cracks open one eye and glares suspiciously at Debbie. “You woke me up,” she accuses.

“Well, yes,” Debbie laughs, “given that it’s only…” she checks Danny’s old watch, “8:00 at night.”

Lou grumbles something cranky under her breath and pulls the blankets tighter around her lanky frame. “I was tired,” she says, sniffling. 

Debbie raises her eyebrows. “Are you feeling okay?” she asks.

Lou shrugs a single shoulder. “I hate winter,” she says, in lieu of an explanation. “My bones are sore.”

Debbie joins Lou on the sofa and pats her lap, a wordless invitation for Lou to curl up there. Lou does not need much more persuading than that. “You’re warm,” she says appreciatively, cuddling into Debbie’s arms. Then she sneezes three times, her body jerking, each motion accompanied by a small, stifled squeak. 

Debbie hands Lou a napkin from the coffee table, leftover from Chinese take-out a few nights ago. Lou takes it gratefully and blows her nose, her eyes watering. Luckily, her makeup was already artfully smudged. She sighs and looks up at Debbie, who pouts. “I’ve a cold,” Lou says, wearing a pout to match Debbie’s. 

“So I see,” Debbie murmurs, smiling sympathetically. “Poor Lou.”

“Poor me,” Lou echoes, coughing into her shoulder. She sighs shakily, her entire body slumping as she exhales. 

Debbie works her way out from under Lou’s weight, even as Lou whines in protest. “Wait here,” Debbie instructs, gentle yet firm. “I’ll be back.”

Lou resettles herself on the sofa, wrapping the blankets around her like a cocoon. Her throat hurts and her eyes are burning. She listens to what she imagines to be the sizzle of garlic and onions hitting a hot pan. Her nose is stuffed up, but she pretends she can smell their savory scent. Her eyes drift shut.

And then, suddenly, the soft pressure of a cool hand on her forehead. “No fever,” Debbie says. “Good.”

Lou leans back on her elbows. “What time is it?” she asks, rubbing an absent hand across her face like a sleepy child. Debbie is hopelessly and stupidly and irrevocably smitten.

“Later,” Debbie says. “Good soup takes a while.” She offers Lou an oversized mug. “Here,” she says, “drink this; it’ll help.”

Through her congestion, Lou is just able to make out the rich smell of chicken and something that almost tickles her nose. She grabs her napkin just in time for a sneeze. “What is this?” she asks, swirling the pale broth, flecked with specks of green cilantro.

“Curried chicken noodle soup,” Debbie answers. “Guaranteed to cure what ails you.”

Lou takes a careful sip, mindful to not burn her mouth. Spices dance on her tongue. “This is wonderful,” she says. Debbie smiles, pleased with herself. 

Lou takes another sip. “I didn’t know you were such a talented cook,” she says.

Debbie shrugs. “I’m a woman of mystery,” she says.

Lou sets the mug down on the table. “It really is delicious,” she says. “Thanks, Deb.”

“How are you feeling?” Debbie asks, a bit of urgency bleeding into her otherwise nonchalant tone.

Lou rubs a thumb over the back of Debbie’s hand, hearing what she knows Debbie can’t quite say. “I’m alright,” she says.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

3.

A straight week of sticky, mid-April rain passes like a year. All the wood doors in the loft warp and swell; plumes of steam sneak in through badly fitted windows and drift lazily up to the ceiling. By the end of day seven, Lou and Debbie have worked their way through every board game they own, three-and-a-half seasons of _Will and Grace_ , and six bottles of red wine. They’ve somehow managed to avoid going totally stir-crazy, but they’re both beginning to become irritable and snappish. They get into a huge, ridiculous argument trying to decide what to have for dinner, and Debbie storms up to the bedroom. Lou briefly considers following her but decides against it. 

It’s just past 7:30 and the rain hasn’t stopped, but it’s slowed to a light, fine drizzle, which is good enough for Lou. Debbie despises rain and humidity with an intensity that never fails to make Lou laugh; she calls her Wicked Witch and moans _I’m meeeeeeeeeeelting_ before crumpling at Debbie’s feet. Lou rather likes the rain. To her, it’s a relief, a promise that everything can always be washed clean again. 

Lou slips a pair of boots on her feet and shrugs into a hooded jacket she finds hanging near the front door. “I’m going for a walk!” she calls up the stairs, and while she’s not expecting Debbie to answer, it still undeniably stings when she’s proven right. 

She doesn’t have a destination in mind; she just walks aimlessly through the mostly empty neighborhood streets. It’s so quiet, a rarity for New York, and she sinks into the damp, delicate peace the way she would a warm bath. She turns her face up towards the sky and shuts her eyes. She stands this way for some time, listening to the soft fizzy sound of the rain as it hits the sidewalk. Then, as suddenly as she closed them, she opens her eyes and walks back towards home.

When Lou walks back into the loft, the first thing she notices is the music. She can just make out Sam Cooke’s velvety croon, the staticky pop of an old record. There are lit candles flickering on all the end tables, too, and--God--rose petals scattered all over the floor. Lou’s heart beats a bit faster, but manages to keep her voice in check when she says: “Either a very romantic burglar has broken in, which honestly wouldn’t even be close to the oddest thing that’s happened in this loft, or someone wants to say--”

“That they’re sorry?” Debbie supplies, appearing in the doorway, a glass of bourbon in each hand. She offers one to Lou, who takes it, along with a very long sip.

The bourbon warms Lou’s chest and loosens her limbs. “You don’t do a single goddamn thing halfway, do you, Ocean?” she says, smiling just enough that Debbie knows all is forgiven.

Debbie kisses Lou’s collarbone, her neck, her jaw. A moan escapes Lou entirely without her permission. “Never,” Debbie whispers, her breath alcohol heady and hot in Lou’s ear. Lou shivers.

_Darling, yooo-oou send me…_

Debbie takes a step back and offers Lou her hand. “May I have this dance?”

Lou raises her right eyebrow but accepts Debbie’s hand. “How gallant,” Lou teases. “You make a very dapper gentleman.”

“I learned from the best.”

Lou laughs out loud, then places her nose on the fragrant crown of Debbie’s head. “Hey,” she says as they gently sway. “I like you.”  


Debbie is silent until the end of the song. Lou breathes in Debbie’s smell and waits. There are worse ways to pass the time.

Finally, Debbie pulls away. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, words unspoken flickering like a movie in her brown eyes.

Lou smiles, a bit sadly. “I know,” she says. “Me too.”

4.

As it turns out, a loft that’s a bitch to heat is also a bitch to keep cool. Debbie learns this the hard way. Heat is miserable regardless, but New York in July heat is a special kind of awful. It sits low and heavy on Debbie’s chest, making her feel panicky, trapped; dredging up ugly memories of bars and cinder block walls and nothing to do but pace and wait and pace and wait and wait and wait. For something. Anything.

One night, Debbie awakes with a gasp from a mean dream. The sheets are matted and twisted around her body like a straitjacket, and she feverishly kicks them off. Lou, clad in nothing but an oversized Sleater-Kinney concert t-shirt and a pair of Debbie’s underwear, sleeps soundly next to her. She is spread eagle on their mattress, mouth parted, her hair and neck slightly damp with sweat. Debbie, her heart pounding and her hands shaking, momentarily considers waking Lou, asking for comfort, to be reminded that she is alive and real and here here here. But as she watches the steady rise and fall of Lou’s chest, she cannot bring herself to do it.

It’s too hot in their bedroom for Debbie to ever fall back asleep, so she gathers her pillows and pens Lou a quick note: _Downstairs on the couch for the rest of the night; we have almost $80 million between us, Tallulah Bankhead. Let’s buy a fucking AC unit, ASAP._ She takes the book Lou’s been reading ( _The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle_ , which Debbie says is pretentious but secretly she finds it rather enchanting that Lou reads such strange, difficult things) and tiptoes out of the room and down the stairs.

She’s spent nearly an hour reading words without actually reading them when she hears the floor creaking, then water running, and then the small crash of something breaking. 

“Oh, bugger.”

Debbie closes the book and takes off her reading glasses. “Are you alright?” she calls out.

Lou appears at the top of the stairs, looking sheepish. “I broke a glass,” she says. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Debbie shakes her head. “It’s okay,” she says. “I was awake anyway.”

Lou cocks her head to the side. “Want some company?”

“Anything’s better than slogging my way through whatever this magical realism bullshit is supposed to be,” Debbie says, waving the book in the air for Lou to see. “It’s unreadable, Lou. Honestly.”

Lou’s mouth quivers as she represses a smile. “Thief.”

“Thank-you.”

Lou vanishes for a few minutes, presumably to clean up the broken glass, and Debbie manages to almost drift off. She sleeps better when someone else in the house is awake. Prison is never quiet, not even at night. She doesn’t miss the constant noise, not really, but she’s forgotten who she is without it. She can just make out Lou lowly singing “Rhiannon”. Offkey, of course. Lou maintains that she has no talent for song, and she’s not wrong, but Debbie still loves the sound of her voice more than anyone else’s.

“Hey, sleepy-head.” 

Debbie’s eyes slowly blink open. Lou is sitting on the couch, one cool hand cupped around Debbie’s cheek, the other playing with her hair. “Mmm,” Debbie hums, eyes closing again, “never stop doing that and you...can do whatever else you want forever.”

“That’s certainly a risky offer,” Lou says, and Debbie can hear the smile in her voice. “I’ll eventually need my hands back, you know.”

“Not if I steal them.”

“I’m not sure amputated hands work quite the same way, Deb.”

Debbie shrugs and yawns. “Semantics.”

Lou kisses Debbie’s temple. “Bad dream?” she asks softly. Debbie murmurs affirmatively. 

“I’m sorry,” Lou says, lying down on her side and spooning Debbie against her chest and stomach. “Is this helping?”

Debbie nods, and Lou holds onto her a bit tighter. “Sleep,” Lou instructs. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“I like it when you hold me,” Debbie says, which is the last thing she says before she falls asleep, even if it’s not quite the words she wants.

Lou sighs against her neck. “Well, I like holding you,” she says, which is the last thing Debbie hears before she falls asleep, even as she imagines the words are different.

5.

Lou is standing on their back patio, nursing a mug of coffee. “‘Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall’,” she intones. “Who was it that said that?”

“Uhm...Fitzgerald, I think,” Debbie answers from where she sits in a deck chair. “In _The Great Gatsby_.”

“Huh,” Lou says. “I’ve never read that.”

Debbie laughs. “Me neither, actually,” she admits. “It’s just one of those random pieces of information I have stored away.”

Lou takes another sip of coffee. “He’s right, though,” she says. “Fitzgerald. It does sort of start over, doesn’t it? I mean, I know everything is dying, but it’s kind of nice, in a morbid sort of way. Like making room for new things.”

Debbie pats her lap, inviting Lou to sit down, who happily obliges. “I like it when you get all,” Debbie waves a hand in the air as she searches for the right description, “thoughtful and literary. It’s cute.”

“Thanks, I think,” Lou says, laughing. She draws her long legs up to her chest and stares out at the river.

Unbidden, words appear in Debbie’s brain: _there has never existed another human this lovely_. She blinks, and knows the words are true.

“Do you ever think of how fucking strange it is, that we’re here?” Lou asks, still watching the water. “Strange in a good way, but still.”

“‘It’s not for the faint of heart, being a person’,” Debbie says. “Tammy told me that one time.”

Lou makes a small noise of agreement. “She’s a smart girl, our Tammy,” she says, then hesitates.

“What is it?” Debbie prompts gently after a moment.

“She always thought that this is where we’d end up, too,” Lou says. “Tammy, I mean. She told me that, once, after you...left.”

“After I left,” Debbie repeats, her tone not quite readable.

“I thought she was, you know, just trying to be reassuring or whatever,” Lou says. “And maybe she was, but I think she also believed it. I don’t know.” She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I wanted to believe her.”

“ _Wanted_ to?” Debbie asks, her voice a little wobbly.

“Well,” Lou says, eyes downcast, “a lot of shit had happened very quickly, obviously, and the whole thing with fucking Claude Becker--”

“Lou. He was just a stupid mistake that I made because I was restless and bored and--”

“No, no, I know,” Lou reassures. “I know. I’m not angry, Deb.”

“Were you?”

“Of course I was angry,” Lou says easily. She takes Debbie’s hand in her own. “I was fucking angry that you’d do something so _stupid_. And I was hurt, and confused, and so fucking lonely.” She roughly wipes tears from her face. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” she sighs, half-laughing. “I thought I was done crying about this.”

Debbie gently brushes Lou’s tears away with her thumb, ignoring the ones that are dripping down her own cheeks. “Me too,” she says, “but I guess it’s not something you ever stop crying about.”

“I guess not,” Lou says, and the tears won’t quite stop, but at least she isn’t sobbing. She hides her face in Debbie’s neck and allows her breaths to even out and slow before she starts talking again. “I was afraid, I think,” she says quietly, “to believe that we were supposed to end up together. Not because I didn’t want it, or I thought it was impossible, but, Deb, you have to know how fucking terrifying it is putting your heart on the line for something that could so easily be one-sided.”

Debbie’s heart is thumping so violently against her ribcage she’s amazed it doesn’t pop out of her chest. “Fuck,” she hisses. “Fucking _fuck_.”

“Debbie--” Lou says, and she sounds alarmed, and Debbie doesn’t blame her, but she can’t quite keep her voice level. She moves to stand up, and Lou stumbles out of her lap. 

Debbie paces back and forth, raking her hands through her hair. “One-sided,” she says, mostly to herself. “One- _sided_? I can’t--I don’t-- _fuck_! Jesus.” She kicks at a deck chair. 

“Why the fuck are you angry at me?” Lou asks, shaken, and maybe even a bit angry herself.

Debbie slumps down onto the patio floor. She puts her face in her hands. “I’m not fucking angry at you,” she says. “I’m--I just--I can’t fucking _believe_ ,” she looks up at Lou, and her expression blazes with agony, with fear, with grief for lost time. “You thought, or, shit, even still _think_ , that I don’t love you. You actually believe that. And that’s just...it’s crazy, because I do love you, more than anything else in the entire stupid fucking world, and I’ve always known that but also never known it and I should’ve fucking _said_ it, but I couldn’t and I didn’t and--”

Lou’s mouth is against Debbie’s so suddenly and fiercely that their teeth almost crash together. When Lou pulls back, her eyes are shiny and her cheeks are blazing red and her nose is running and, again, the voice in Debbie’s brain: _never existed a human so lovely_. “Lou--” Debbie begins, but Lou puts her hand over Debbie’s mouth.

“Shut the fuck up and kiss me, Debbie Ocean,” she says breathlessly. “I love you, too. You stupid idiot.”

**Author's Note:**

> Tammy saying, "It's not for the faint of heart, being a person," is actually something Sarah Paulson once said during an interview, and I loved it so much that I wanted to include it here.
> 
> I have a lot of different song quotes that I'm planning to use as fic inspirations, but if there's a quote you really love & associate with a particular character/ship please feel free to share it in the comments!
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated & makes me smile; I love hearing what people think about what I write.


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